Brookwood Cemetery near Woking is probably the most fascinating burial ground in the country.

Not only is it home to an Orthodox Christian Monastery, it houses the bones of a martyred English King who was made a saint and it was also the end of the line for a Victorian railway used exclusively for transporting corpses. It may sound like the elements of a Dan Brown bestseller but this colourful history is largely unknown.

Now, however, thanks to a £30,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, all is about to be revealed. The St Edward Brotherhood, whose monastery is within the cemetery, is to create a visitor exhibition that will uncover the varied history of the site.

The Brotherhood was established in the cemetery in 1982 and currently occupies two buildings originally built as Anglican chapels. The larger, now St Edward the Martyr Church, guards the bones of St Edward, who was made king in 975 but was murdered at Corfe in Dorset some four years later. Suspicion fell on his stepmother who is said to have arranged the murder in order that her son, Ethelred – known to history as The Unready – could succeed to the throne.

After Edward’s body was buried at Shaftesbury Abbey miraculous cures were said to take place at the site of his grave. He was canonised in 1008 but his remains were subsequently removed and hidden. On being re-discovered in the early 1930s the search began for a church willing at take over responsibility for them. Eventually, it was the Orthodox Church, through the King Edward Orthodox Trust, that offered to take over custodianship and established their monastery.

When originally opened in 1854 to deal with London’s growing need for burial space Brookwood’s 500 acres made it the biggest cemetery in the world.  Named the London Necropolis (or city of the dead) the cemetery was laid out next to the main railway line from the capital and a siding and two small stations were built in the cemetery. The London terminus for what became the Necropolis Railway was built just outside Waterloo Station.

The Brotherhood is currently constructing a new monastic building and some of the space formerly used as monks’ dormitories in the smaller of its existing chapels will be turned into a visitor exhibition area. The permanent exhibition with details of Saint Edward, the Brotherhood and the Necropolis Railway will be augmented by activity days when monks will demonstrate icon painting and bookbinding.

Help in creating the exhibition will come from John Clarke of the Brookwood Cemetery Society and Woking’s gallery and museum, The Lightbox.

For the Heritage Lottery Fund, South East England Region Manager Sheena Vick said: “The unique and varied history of this site deserves to be shared with a wider audience. This project will at last make that a reality.”

 Commenting for the Saint Edward Brotherhood, Archimandrite Alexis said:  "This grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund is a godsend to our appeal, and will help us bring to the attention of a wider public a part of England's early history which has significance even today, and something of the local history of the Woking area."